Scars
by Windchaser
Summary: Set in the past, a Girorocentric story about war and the scars it can leave on you.


A/N: This is my take on how Giroro aquired that scar of his, going by the tidbit in the manga that mentioned that he got it from Keroro.

-------

Giroro could still recall the last time Garuru had acted at all concerned about his well-being. It happened to coincide with the time he received what would come to be his distinguishing physical characteristic.

It had been his first shot at leading a platoon and he'd blown it. Big time. He'd underestimated the enemy's firepower and as a result his entire platoon had been wiped out. Giroro, through some bizarre twist of fate had gotten away with just superficial scratches, wounds that had healed almost completely by the time he handed in his report to his superiors.

Safe to say he'd seen his survival as his biggest failure and he'd been surprised at the lack of repercussions for what had happened. They probably wouldn't let him lead another platoon in quite some time, but nothing else. Perhaps being forced to notify the families of his former platoon members was seen as punishment enough.

"I don't understand it!" Giroro said to Keroro, jostling his glass making the ice cubes rattle. "Not a single one of them was upset at me, even though I was responsible for their deaths."

"Bah", Keroro slurred. "This kind 'a talk means you hav'n't had enough t' drink!"

To punctuate this he finished off his third space-Midori of the evening and nodded toward the bartender to whip up another one.

"Bein' in the Keron Forces means you c'n get yerself killed, tha's what they know", Keroro continued with the confidence of someone who hasn't yet seen any real battles, jabbing a finger in Giroro's face.

"Feh, alcohol is poison", Giroro muttered, taking another sip of his sparkling water. "Remind me again how this is supposed to make me feel better."

Keroro spent a few minutes trying to fish out the slice of space-tangerine resting at the bottom of his glass before paying attention to his all too sober friend.

"Alcohol's s'pposed to make you forget your sorrows", Keroro said. "But it won't help if y' don' drink!"

At this point the bartender placed a new drink in front of Keroro and Giroro was left alone with his water. At times he could hear Keroro grumble about "ungrateful friends" that had "spoiled my wonderful cheer-up plan" punctuating it with a drunken sounding "gerogero".

Giroro just sighed and once again pondered his choice of friends.

The evening took a horrible turn for the worse when a very intoxicated Keroro decided it would be awesome to get up and dance on the bar. One of his kicks managed to send his glass flying at another drunk customer, who immediately came flying at Keroro.

When Keroro refused to apologize and to top it off implied that the other Keronian's mother had had intercourse with a creature of the more...primitive sort there was no stopping the fight from breaking out.

At first Giroro had kept his distance hoping Keroro would learn a valuable lesson here, but when his friend grabbed a nearby bottle and smashed it against a table to use as a weapon he jumped in. He'd seen quite enough blood-shed on the battlefield, thank you very much.

"Drop it, Keroro", he'd yelled over the din in the bar, the other patrons were cheering madly for one of the combatants. Giroro could've sworn he'd also seen money changing hands.

When Keroro showed no signs of listening to him and instead lunged for the other Keronian, broken bottle raised, Giroro grabbed his friend and tried to wrestle him to the ground.

Some members of the crowd surrounding them started hooting and hollering, thinking there was now a third fighter and he could hear insults and cheers flung his way. Keroro flailed, but seemed to be going down without too much trouble when he, during a surprising last struggle for freedom slashed at Giroro with the bottle he was still holding.

There was a sharp flash of pain and suddenly Giroro found the vision of his left eye obscured by...Blood? Shocked he dropped Keroro, who fell to the floor with a grunt. Giroro raised a hesitant hand to his face and it came back dyed a slightly different shade of red than usual.

Keroro seemed to sober up instantly at the sight of what he'd managed to do and staggered to his feet.

"I-I'm sorry, Giroro", he stuttered, hands trembling as he tried to assess the damage to Giroro's face. "W-We should get you to the hospital, or something."

Judging that the evening couldn't get any worse, Giroro allowed himself to be led out of the bar and the piercing stares of the occupants within.

Once outside Keroro, apparently more panicked about the ordeal than Giroro himself, started flailing about looking for a taxi. That was when Giroro saw him, leaning casually on a no-parking sign as if he'd been waiting for them.

"Garuru", he grumbled as the purple Keronian walked over to the pair. Apparently the evening could get worse after all.

As if he possessed some kind of taxi-hailing power Garuru managed to call over a taxi from out of nowhere and nudged Keroro toward it.

"You should probably go home and sleep off the alcohol", Garuru barked. "And hope you won't have too much of a hang-over in the morning."

Keroro acknowledged the semi-order with a trembling salute and staggered inside the taxi, but not without one last concerned look at Giroro.

Blood was still dribbling down his face, but Giroro felt like it might have slowed down a bit. He wasn't in a lot of pain, but he suspected that was all due to shock.

"You're coming with me", Garuru said and gave Giroro a slight shove to get him moving. "I know someone that has a clinic nearby. No use waiting in a hospital emergency room for hours."

They walked in silence for a few minutes and Giroro began to hope that his brother might actually let him be this once. No such luck though.

"Getting in a fight, huh?" Garuru said. "Trying to get yourself killed is hardly the right way to honor your platoon's sacrifice."

Giroro took a deep breath to calm himself, which was hard enough already with the jagged cut oozing blood all over his face.

"It was that idiot Keroro that got in that fight and not me!" he growled, rubbing the blood out of his left eye for the tenth time. The cut was starting to throb painfully. "This was the thanks I got for preventing him from murdering some stranger in a drunken bar brawl."

Giroro grumbled something about the stupidity of alcohol and kicked an offending rock into the street.

Garuru opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but closed it again and instead pulled a handkerchief from somewhere and pressed it over the cut.

"There, hold that to your face", he said the harshness in his voice disappearing for an instant. "Now hurry up, it's just around the corner."

In another one of those bizarre twists of fate it turned out that the clinic Garuru had spoken of was owned by a close relative of Pururu's, or that's what Giroro guessed when he saw her assisting the small group of people in the waiting room.

Pururu had gone from smiling politely at Garuru as they entered to looking at Giroro in recognition and then shook.

"Giroro-kun, isn't it?" she gasped. "What happened to you?"

"That doesn't matter now", Garuru barked. "Can he see your uncle right away?"

Pururu said that she'd go check and left through a door. Giroro was grateful that he hadn't been forced to reveal who'd given him the cut, Pururu had seemed rather fond of Keroro back in school. He slumped down in a chair feeling oddly light-headed, the events of the evening catching up to him. There would be no more bar-hopping with Keroro, of that Giroro felt very sure.

Fortunately it didn't take long before Pururu returned and assured them that her uncle could see him in his office.

Pururu's uncle turned out to be a kind, light-blue colored Keronian that didn't ask any probing questions as he closed the cut on Giroro's face with a couple of neat stitches.

"You're lucky that your eye wasn't damaged", he said as he covered up the wound with bandages to keep it sterile. "The stitches will dissolve on their own as the wound heals."

"Get back to me if there's any sign of infection", the medic added as he got up and left the room.

Giroro had a few seconds to wonder if he was supposed to stay or not when Garuru entered.

"So, feeling any better?" Garuru asked, arms crossed over his chest, his normal stoic expression plastered on his face.

"Well, I'm not bleeding anymore", Giroro snorted as he picked at the bandages over his left eye.

"I wasn't talking about your cut", Garuru said. "I'm referring to the reason you let that friend of yours drag you off to a bar in the first place."

Giroro eyed his brother, pupils narrowing to slits, but in the end said nothing.

"Don't flatter yourself into thinking you're the only one that made a mistake on their first real mission", Garuru growled. "If you're planning on moping about every single subordinate or team-mate that dies for Keron you might as well resign right now."

"What's wrong about feeling guilty about something that was my fault", Giroro hissed. "I led them there, so I was the one that got them all killed! Shit, two of them were still tadpoles..."

"I had promised to protect them", Giroro added after a brief silence, voice dropping to a near-whisper.

Giroro clenched and unclenched his hands and let his gaze stray towards the floor. For a while all he could hear was his own accelerated breathing and the pounding of his heart.

Finally Garuru spoke.

"This is why you have to let it go, Giroro."

Giroro looked up as he felt a comforting arm placed on his shoulder.

"You'll be no good as a soldier if you let everything get to you like this", Garuru said calmly plopping down next to him on the table, his eyes just barely visible through the visor. "It's better to let it go. Mourn them if you want, but you should remind yourself that being killed in the call of duty is a risk everyone is aware of. We are all responsible for our own actions and I'm sure your platoon knew that."

Giroro felt a protest forming in the back of his head, how he just couldn't think like that when Garuru, apparently sensing what he was thinking raised a silencing finger.

Then, in a shocking display of comfort, Garuru put an arm around his shoulders and guided Giroro out of the office and the clinic. Giroro had a vague recollection that he may or may not have waved goodbye to Pururu as they left.

Despite feeling unsure if he'd really be able to just forget his platoon and everyone else that was bound to get killed around him in the future he actually did feel a bit better. Maybe it was the implication that what he was going through was nothing unique. Still, one question remained and as they both sat in the taxi on the way home he had to let it out.

"I can't believe the perfect Garuru ever made a mistake", Giroro said and peered at his brother who turned around to meet his gaze. "What exactly did you do?"

"That's not important!" Garuru snapped and turned to look outside the window. Giroro could've sworn there was a hint of a blush on his brother's face.

Giroro grinned to himself. Keroro would go crazy with the knowledge that Garuru had such a secret, apparently very embarrassing.

Turning to the night landscape passing by outside Giroro promised himself one thing. If there was anyone that was going to get hurt because of his negligence in the future it would be himself. He swore this on the belt he was wearing and the scar that would undoubtedly form across his left eye.

The mood was spoiled slightly by the snores coming from his brother.


End file.
